Letters of My Heart
by Cobalt Violet
Summary: We were wrong about our forever, but we were not wrong about our love.' A broken man wonders about what was, what is, and what could have been. SBRL (OOTP SPOILERS)


**Disclaimer:** Whilst I solemnly swear I am up to no good with these characters, I will give them back to Ms Rowling when I am done. The same applies for the song. ^_~  
**Notes:** Written for the 'Filling in the Blanks' challenge, a truly worthy cause in my opinion.  
**Dedication:** To all the people in my life, who know and love (or at least put up with) my angst fests.  
**Spoilers:** _OOTP_, SO BE WARNED!  
**Warning:** SLASH, meaning MALE/MALE stuff, don't like, go elsewhere; consider yourself warned, oh and angst.

_The man walked into the room, his hands visibly trembling as he stared around at the familiar setting. Walking to the large desk, he sank into the chair and stared silently out of the opposite window for a few moments. His soft breathing was the only sound as he absent-mindedly traced patterns on the wooden surface with one, slender finger. If a casual observer had looked closely, they would have made out the letters 'S' and 'R' were being drawn, but no one was there to see, and perhaps it was just as well._

_Taking a deep, shuddering breath, the man turned his head from the window, and picked up a blank piece of parchment from one of the drawers. Finding a quill and some ink in another, he carefully dipped the snowy feather into the bottle, dully noticing that the ink looked like black blood as it began to be absorbed by the quill. Taking another breath, he carefully wiped away a solitary, glittering tear that had slid down his cheek, and began to write._

Dearest Sirius,

Your death was beautiful.

How odd, to call something so horrific beautiful; how strange, and, in a very real sense, twisted. But at the same time, oh how justifiable, your death was perfection, beautiful in its tragedy, perfection in its execution, graceful in its movement. Odd, that even the wolf appreciates this, understands to a certain degree that its mate's demise was one of unbelievable wonder, something that anyone who witnessed it, would never forget. Until that moment, I had never seen you quite so alive, even as you were dying.

What little I remember of the scene is only in dribs and drabs. I remember Albus appearing, the look of relief on everyone's face as we thought that it was over at least for the time being. I remember the sudden, hot surge of panic that raced down my spine and settled, bitterly hot in my stomach, choking me with fear as I suddenly realised that two people were still fighting, and that one of those two was you.

I remember you laughing, your face alight with a savage joy, and thinking that I could see why Harry thought you were evil on the night he first met you. I saw you dodge the first jet of light, dancing on light feet out of harms way, as only you could. I saw you turn to look your cousin full in the face, openly mocking her, hating what your family stood for, even unto the end. I remember the second bolt of light that seemed to fly towards you in slow motion, before hitting you square in the chest. I remember the smile still hanging on your lips, even as you began to fall backwards. I remember you looking up towards the ceiling, your grey eyes still shining, as though you wanted to imprint your last memory forever on your soul. I remember your swirling, black hair that flew in all directions, caught by the breeze as you fell. It made you seem oddly alive, but my fevered brain knew you were dead before you hit the floor.

I remember the last of the smile vanishing from your full lips as you tumbled through the arch, tossed like a broken doll. I remember running feet, and Harry's harsh scream, and then, I remember…  
  


…nothing.

Yes darling, as I said, perfection in its execution, sheer drama, how stylish of you to die like that, I thank you for your final performance. You always were a bit of a drama queen, and, I must confess, your swansong was truly wonderful. You were so gorgeous, so life like in death, all I wanted to do was cradle you in my arms and kiss you until we were both breathless with desire, as we'd been so many times before.

I didn't see your body at first, I was far, far too busy holding Harry back, apparently; but when he broke free and ran after your cousin, I gave in to the temptation to run over to you myself, and see if you were truly dead.

You were lying on your back, looking composed and calm, your eyes were shut now, but your beautiful, kissable lips were slightly parted, their soft barrier stained a strange, vivid red that only added to the surreal sensation that you were simply sleeping. Your skin, which had always been a little pale, was a beautiful, snowy white that only enhanced the redness of your lips, and the slight flush that seemed to linger on your cheeks. If I looked closely, I could almost have sworn that your chest was rising and falling gently as your long, slender fingers seemed to twitch restlessly on the end of one carelessly out flung hand, as though you were fighting off a bad dream. Your long, obsidian hair, was pooled in rivulets on the floor around you, and streaming in silken ribbons down over your shoulders.

"Sirius," My own voice sounded distant and far off, even to myself, "Sirius, it's time to wake up now." I frowned as you didn't stir. That was odd, your eyes usually flew open at the slightest sound, no matter how deeply asleep you appeared to be. "Paddy, come on Paddy, wake up." My voice was soft, chiding, and for some reason as I threw a quick glance around the room to see if anyone could help me wake you up, I saw people looking at me with a mixture of pity and more than a little horror.

It was the sort of look they would give a mad man.

But I wasn't mad, was I? No, of course not, I was only trying to wake you up, yes that was all; they hadn't known we were more than friends that was obviously it. Turning my back on them, I gently stroked your hair, revelling in the feel of it sliding against my palms. "Wake up for me darling," I crooned, raining little kisses down on your cool forehead, before gently tracing your delicate lips with one finger, "Come on, we need your help." 

How odd, it seemed then, that you didn't open your eyes. 

How strange.

"Remus," Moody had said, stumping up behind me, "Remus…he's gone…you said so yourself, you said it to Harry." He laid a hand on my shoulder, an expression of pity no doubt gracing his mangled features, but I didn't turn my gaze from you.

"Don't be silly, Mad Eye," I said, and I think it was my calm assurance that frightened all of them more than anything else, "Sirius isn't dead, he's just sleeping…aren't you, darling?" I breathed, leaning closer to you, my lips barely grazing yours as I murmured, "Fine, pretend your sleeping, I'm sure I'll be able to wake you up later." Pressing a gentle kiss to your, now blood red, lips, I stood up gracefully, and smiled. However, something in my expression must have worried the remaining, conscious members of the Order, for they all seemed to shift away from me, their gazes sliding away from my own.

"If someone could just wait with Sirius until he wakes up, I'll go and get Fudge." I said, brightly.

"Remus…" Moody tried again, "Sirius isn't going to _wake_ up."  
  
I think I must have rounded on him, because the next thing I remember, I was gripping him by the collar, my face dangerously close to his own as I hissed, "Never. Say. That. Again." I turned on my heel, and stalked out of the room, leaving a number of confused and worried people in my wake.

Three days melted away once we all got back to Grimmauld place. They passed in a haze of activity, but occasionally I caught people shooting worried looks in my direction. How silly of them, why on earth should they be worried about me? _I_ was fine, it was Tonks who had been knocked unconscious, and besides, I still had you, even if you were still asleep somewhere…maybe they put you in another room so I wouldn't worry.

I still remember the strange, almost surreal quality to those few days before I accepted the truth. They seemed to pass without anything breaking my inner calm. I know now that this calm was probably leant to me by shock, and this didn't break until the next full moon, when both Moony and myself waited for our mate…who never came.

_Then_ the pain hit.

People told me it was good that I was feeling the pain and sorrow, good that I was coming to accept that you were gone, good that I was beginning to understand what had happened. Well, I asked them, is it? Is it really? It sure as hell doesn't feel like it from this end of the emotions. I wonder if you _really_ know what I'm going through? I wonder if you _really_ understand the endless torment my soul is put through day after day, night after night. I had lost my mate once, but to lose him a second time, that was too cruel for words, and you people were telling me I should be _glad_ for it?

I screamed, I threw things, I savagely tore at my own skin, even as I would normally only do when it was full moon. I wept for hours on end, just sitting on our…no, _my_ bed. Not ours any more, nothing would ever be 'ours' again, it was all mine. Mine, mine, mine and oh! How I loathed it!

I remember at one point, when I was suffering a rare burst if lucidity, the memory of one of our wonderful nights before you died, when we were still getting reacquainted with one another.

You had been sprawled on your back, your head tilted towards the ceiling, your full, swollen lips parted to emit strangled half gasps, half sobs. Your long, creamy legs, wrapped around me, so intimately, so knowingly, as your hair trailed everywhere, tickling your bare, flushed skin, wisps of it caressing your cheeks as it moved with every puff of air you emitted from your perfect mouth. In that moment, when I had looked down at you, seen the beautiful, familiar grey eyes staring back, clouded with lust and a love so powerful it was almost solid, I had known, this wasn't just for today, or tomorrow, or even for the rest of our lives, it was _forever_.

You had affirmed that, even as my own thought flitted away like a cloud on a brisk summer's day. "Oh god…love you…love you forever." You had panted, your slender, clever fingers weaving through the strands of my hair and gripping, pulling me down for another, bruising kiss. "_Remus_…" You had shuddered then, your legs pulling tighter, but your face took on a sudden, intense look. "We'll always have tomorrow."  
  
"Always." I had affirmed, before thrusting forwards, causing you to gasp and then emit a pleading moan, that begged for more.

My reverie had been interrupted then, by Moody coming to take me to Kings Cross, to see Harry safely on his way, but I returned to that scene time and time again in my head, and it caused me no end of grief as it teased me with its false promise of forever.

Forever.

Such a long word, but one that can mean so much…no…_could_ have meant so much, but doesn't any more.

There was always a side to you that I was never sure of. It was a darker side, a wicked side, a side that enabled me to believe for thirteen years that you really _had_ murdered our two, dearest friends. But it was that side of you that first called to me in the darkness of our dorm, when Peter and James were both asleep. I used to imagine I could hear you slipping from your bed, padding across to my own…I could almost see you drawing the curtains back, peering down at me, your eyes alive with lust as you stared at me, a strangely wanton expression on your face before you crawled into my arms and into my bed. The darkness in me dreamed of these things.  Sometimes, I could almost feel the darkness in _you_ answering; whispering seductive words of encouragement.

It was a side to both of us that was dark, primitive, and above all, cruel.

Yes darling, I'll admit, there _were_ times when we didn't make love, when we quite simply fucked. It was hard, fast and brutal, both in the giving and the taking, and more often than not, we would leave bruises on one another, to be discovered by the morning's sun. It was a side to both of us that nobody else had ever been allowed to see, not even when I had changed into a snarling monster once a month. It was a side that was wild, untamed, passionate, but oh so deadly.

Hmm, I suppose I went off on a bit of a tangent there, didn't I, love? Well, I always did tend to 'expound' as you once put it, your face wreathed in a teasing smile as you claimed the 'only reason I ever talked at all, was to show my large vocabulary, and therefore show you, Prongs and Wormtail up.' Well, I always did have a passion for words, I suppose, but I could never find any that would have described your perfection.

How saccharine that just sounded. Ah! If Lily were still here, she'd shake her head in mock horror at my sappiness, but a hint of a smile would tug at the corner of her mouth, and her eyes would flicker over to where Jamie would be. We were two of a kind, I suppose. Prongs and 'the' Lily, and Padfoot and his Moony. Wormtail always hung around in the background after we were all paired up…I suppose I can understand how left out he must have felt, because he didn't even have the benefit of talking to you or I; we were too wrapped up in one another to be friendly to him. I suppose it makes sense that eventually his isolation drove him to seek out a 'newer' crowd.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic again.

Five or six weeks passed, after you died, and August had rolled around before the sharp, stinging sensation that your death caused, faded to a dull, yet nagging ache, that refused to go away. I wandered through my days in a haze of dull, incomprehension that had settled around my shoulders like a cloak.  I saw everything as though through the wrong end of a telescope, and every sensation was dulled until all I could feel was the ache. Everything seemed a long way off, and I was gathering more than my fair share of worried looks from Molly, Arthur, the Weasley boys (and girl), Mad Eye and Tonks. Albus, I noted distractedly, had not even come to offer his condolences, but then, he probably hadn't known…nobody _else_ had, except for Lils, James and Peter and, well…Peter didn't count for much now.

So you see, Sirius, you took our secret to the grave, nobody knew we had been mates, lovers…beyond friends, although I sometimes used to wonder if Harry knew something. You remained faithful to our secret until the end, so nobody would have to pity the poor, desolate werewolf.

It's odd – coming back to the present for a moment, dearest – but the only emotion left now seems to be despair…that, and of course the hollow ache in the pit of my stomach that refuses to be cured. I often lay awake, wondering if perhaps it is the wolf pining away; would we _really_ both pine to death? My strength is fading, certainly, but everything seems much sharper, almost like I have slipped into a new world, where the colours are harder, brighter, more dazzling, but without that sense of warmth and familiarity. Everything is much harsher to me, much more – dare I say it – realistic.

I wonder what you'd call this piece of writing, lover, if you were alive today. You always teased me about my verbosity, but you were just as eloquent with your words. You thrived on them, not because you were a gossip (nothing of the kind!) but because words were part of your magic, part of who you were. When you talked people would stop and listen, just stand there, letting the smooth waves of your voice wash over them. When you spoke, I could almost imagine sinners and saints stopping to listen, being held spell bound by the soft timbre of your voice.

Ah, but I've wandered off again, haven't I?

I was wondering what you would make of this piece of writing. 

I suppose, in a way, you'd understand, but all the same, you'd tell me to 'stop being so melodramatic'. Hmm, easy for you to say my darling; not so easy to understand from _this_ side of the veil. It's strange, because in a way, it feels like you haven't gone, like you're still here, just…hiding I guess the word would be. Every time I turn around it feels like you've just left the room, or darted out of sight under a table as Padfoot. I keep expecting to see that telltale flash of black hair, just vanishing around a corner or the sight of your eyes, dancing in your face as you scrutinise my every move.

This morning, I picked up a photograph of the two of us, by accident. God! When I saw what it was, a sensation a sharp as a shard of ice drove into my stomach. The world seemed to stop for a second, the air left my lungs and I felt like I was being crushed slowly by the oppressive atmosphere of the room. The picture had been at Jamie's wedding, we'd just been sitting there, minding our own business and chatting in a corner, when Lily had run over, her gorgeous white robe flapping behind her as she waved a camera in our faces.

"Hey! You Two! I want a picture!"  
  
You had smirked, looking up at her from your seat with a wicked expression on your face. "What? You want to drool over me and Moony when Jamesy can't provide?"  
  
"I heard that!" Came the mock irate voice of our said best friend as he waved a glass of champagne from across the room. "What Lils _really_ wants it for, is to compare it to a picture of me, and to think how lucky she is that she got the best looking one out of all of us…no offence Pete."  
  
Peter had shrugged, grinning.

I had laughed, and you had acknowledged James' jibe with a gallant salute of your own glass of champagne. "Ok Lils, fire away." Not waiting for my reaction, you had simply dumped the champagne glass on the table, dragged me onto your lap, and kissed me fiercely, taking my breath away. Hollers and wolf whistles faded around us, and even the flash of Lily's camera did not deter you…

Shaking with suppressed sobs, I had slammed the photo down on the table, turning away from it.

I suppose that was foolish of me, darling, throwing a tantrum like that, but sometimes I wonder if I'm going mad, because these memories that haunt me are so vivid, so real, that it's almost like I'm living them. But instead of the joy I felt when we first made those memories, I suffer only pain; a pain that isn't even bittersweet, but just bitter. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, sweetheart, a faint, haunting tang, that simply makes me want to retch, to curl up and die.

The wolf is stronger in me now as well. It seems to have become desperate to find you again, I suppose my only worry should be if it realises the only way to find you again, is to terminate our lives, but quite honestly, I really can't say that I care. I should be more considerate of other people's feelings; I know you would only scold me for being so selfish if you were here, but I'm simply past the point of caring. My life has seemed to develop one long monotonous pattern, everything passes in a dull haze, but I seem to be acting as normal, because most people have stopped worrying now.

I don't even have hope any more, because to have hope would mean there was a chance you could come back, and let's face the facts, it's not going to happen.

I only have one more thing to say, my darling Padfoot.

I miss you, more than I would miss life itself, but I have to point out that you were wrong when you told me we would have forever…we were both wrong. We were foolish and arrogant, we thought we were invincible, and we've both learnt the hard way. You promised me that we'd never lose one another again, but it has happened, and sometimes I wonder if we truly were doomed from the start. More tragic than Romeo and Juliet, our love stronger than that of Cathy and Heathcliff's, yes, we should be compared to these tragic lovers, if only because our own story is so similar, but so much more potent, and yet, it will never be told.

We were mistaken about our forever, Paddy, but we were not mistaken about our love.

You hold my heart forever,

Remus.

_The man carefully folded the piece of parchment in half, and slid it gently into a small drawer on one side of the desk. Standing, he stretched slightly, silent tears tracking their way down his face, as he stared out of the window, half hoping to catch a glimpse of a large black dog, or familiar form striding up the path to the house. Nothing appeared, however, and after a few moments, he turned and walked quietly from the room, shutting the door behind him, with an almost frightening finality._

_Perhaps, if he had lingered a few moments longer, he would have caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, heard the soft rush of feet, followed by echoing laughter, that sounded as though it was coming from down a long corridor. He might have heard the laughter be cut off, followed by a small intake of breath. He might have caught a glimpse of a man, dark and youthful once more, standing in a solitary ray of light from the dying sun, by the window. He might have recognised the man, might have taken a step towards him, half disbelieving, even as the man half smiled, and touched a hand to his heart, mouthing the word 'forever'._

_But he saw none of this, and had no comfort, even as the insubstantial figure of that which could have been, faded away again, leaving a last whisper: 'Forever my love; because we will always have tomorrow.' He saw nothing and heard nothing._

_He was too busy waiting for his tomorrow._

**_'Long after we are gone, our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains. _**

**_But I will admit, that the part of me that is going, will very much miss the part of you that is staying.' – Anon_****__**


End file.
